J.T. Miller playing for Team USA U20 World Junior Hockey Championship in January.AP

The moment that many were waiting for will finally arrive Tuesday night, when the Rangers’ 2011 first-round pick, J.T. Miller, will make his NHL debut against the Devils in Newark.

Miller, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound center, was recalled from the Connecticut Whale (AHL) Monday afternoon and will be thrown right into the fire of a heated rivalry.

“You dream about this since you’re a little kid,” Miller said after the morning skate. “I’m lucky I got an opportunity and I’m going to try and make the best of it; not over-think it and just play my game. Obviously, I’m really excited for it and it’s going to be fun.”

According to the team, although Miller was playing professionally in the AHL, because of his age – the fact the he’s still eligible to play in juniors – he can play five games for the Rangers without the first year of his entry-level contract going into effect. Once he plays the sixth game, the first of his three years will begin in this 48-game season.

Yet coach John Tortorella is not looking too far past the game against the Devils.

“When we gave [Miller] a little bit of the foundation of how we play, we try to take some pressure off of him,” Tortorella said. “You need to get out of his way. If they’re kids or whatever, you need to get out of their way and let them play.

“As coaches, you need to understand there will be some mistakes made. And as we keep going through the process here – and it’s a little bit different in this type of year because you don’t have all the games – as we go through, we’ll make decisions as far as, do we think it’s best to coach him here and coach his mistakes here, or does he need to go back down and continue playing.”

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The other young player called up with Miller, bruising forward Brandon Mashinter, was sent back down Tuesday afternoon. What that infers is that rookie Chris Kreider is ready to go after missing the past five games with a bone chip in his right ankle.

Tortorella said in the morning that he was going to talk to trainer Jim Ramsay about Kreider’s availability, and that “we’ll see where we go.”

With Mashinter back in Hartford, the Rangers would have 12 healthy forwards including Kreider. Defenseman Stu Bickel, who had played forward the past three games, would be the only other option up front, but he has skated the past two times – Monday’s practice and Tuesday’s morning skate – as a defenseman.

The only defenseman to stay on the ice late was Steve Eminger, meaning he’ll likely be a scratch. The other spot is between Bickel and Matt Gilroy, and it’s likely Gilroy will play his third straight game on the blue line.

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Also making his Rangers debut on Tuesday will be forward Darroll Powe. He was the main piece the Blueshirts received in a trade on Monday when they sent veteran Mike Rupp to the Wild.

“With Powe, it’s a guy that can kill penalties,” said Tortorella, who formerly potent penalty kill is going into the game ranked 19th in the league (78.4 percent). “He has played in the league, does a lot of little things on the boards; certainly adds to our depth in a lot of different situations and I can move him around.

“Rupper, I don’t have a bad word to say about him.”

Powe was also looking forward to the opportunity to play for a team that he thinks matches his hard-nosed style.

“I’ve looked at the Rangers the last couple years and I like the way they play,” Powe said. “The play a simple, hard game and that’s kind of the way I play. So it’s exciting to be part of this organization.”

The 27-year-old played parts of three years with the Flyers after spending four years playing at Princeton University. So he is fully aware of the Atlantic Division and it’s deep-rooted rivalries.

“Three years in Philly, I got to know this area really well and what some of these rivalries mean,” Powe said. “Those are exciting games and it’s exciting to be part of them.”

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Henrik Lundqvist will start in nets for the eighth time in the first nine games.